The Need To Know

As I countdown the days to going back to school, I can only sit back in my room in front of my humongous TV screen and watch as many shows as I can. TV serials need absolutely no introduction. I've been hooked to a couple of really popular shows like "The OC", "One Tree Hill" and "Prison Break" recently. This, together with my Jap-drama DVDs and you'll know that I have a year's worth of watching right here in my bedroom. Sometimes TV can be an even more potent drug than morphine or cocaine but they all do one thing: mess up your mind.

Any TV junkie would understand how easy it is to start the episodes the very minute morning coffee's over with. This never used to be that much of a problem before the DVD fad and, more recently, the online TV option came about. What used to be an early morning relaxation before the daily grind has now become the daily grind itself. Just what does TV have over us?

For starters, we all love to have drama in our lives. Unfortunately for us, the drama that we fantasize about doesn't exactly match up with reality. TV offers a different dimention altogether. You KNOW that your dreams are going unfurl in front of you. You KNOW that Haley and Nathan are going to get back together (hey I'm still on Season 2 ok) but even if they don't, you KNOW that something good will come out the whole situation. We KNOW almost evrything that is going to happen but what excites us is the HOW.

In what I like to call 'scripted-reality', there are no boundaries. Or rather, the writer sets the boundaries. And like you guessed, the writer is a human being after all. What the writer isn't is a realist. Sure you've got 'realist' plays and TV's supposed to be 'realist' as well but how much of REAL LIFE is reflected in all these stories? Close to none. The jist of it might remind you of real life but in 'scripted reality', there are countless opportunities for the characters to make up for something when they've screwed up. X's father has an affair, thinks that his family is gone, but then realizes that his mother has an affair as well. Both parents, who obviously find themselves standing on level ground, make up and live happily ever after.. affiar-free.

Life doesn't offer us those opporunities, those chances. You forget to say something at your cosuin's wedding, you don't get a chance to say it again. You get your girlfriend pregnant, you're not going to have a chance to go back and put on a condom again. You hesitate to tell someone you love her, you're not going to have a chance to tell her just before she goes for her summer break (One Tree Hill). TV has all those chances. But they're not for us, they're made for the characters in the story. But we all wish our lives were like that don't we? Countless opportunities to do or say what we've always wanted to. But we don't. So we watch...